


Still Waiting

by saruma_aki



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Aaron Burr, Implied/Referenced Depression, Platonic Relationships, Poor Aaron Burr, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, alexander and the gang are kind of really bad friends, i torture him in this story, seriously, they're just friends here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 21:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saruma_aki/pseuds/saruma_aki
Summary: "If there's a reason I'm still alive when everyone who loves me has died, I'm willing to wait for it"And yet he was still waiting, the desperation clawing at him from the inside out, tearing him apart and leaving him with his will staining his hands and the sword on the thread over his head.ORI got a lot of feels for Burr while listening to "Wait For It" and "The Room Where It Happens" and I chose to write them out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, so, this is my first Hamilton fic ever, so--yay!
> 
> This took me forever to write, mainly because I felt the characterization was a bit off, but I tried my best.
> 
> And Burr is the first to fall victim to my writing, mainly because I related to him and what he said in "Wait For It" and in "The Room Where It Happens" and those are the two songs I pulled a lot of his characterization here from--and some of the things here are from my own personal experiences and emotions, so there's that.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

He couldn’t remember the death of his parents or their funeral. He had a hazy image of a sort of procession, a large mass of black amongst some light but that was it. The day hadn’t been very special to him. It hadn’t mattered in the years later. It was only when he bothered to ask why he didn’t have a mother that he found out what that hazy visage that lurked at the edges of his memory and occasionally haunted his dreams was.

A funeral, they had called it.

Fat lot of good that word did him.

It broke his oddly constructed walls as the word rolled through his mind, like a penny going down a drain until it finally sank in. Despite his brains, he had somehow managed to delude himself into thinking that his parents were on some sort of extended vacation. That they’d be coming back, it was just taking a bit.

And with that safety blanket ripped away as the meanings of ‘funeral’ and ‘death’ were revealed, he didn’t know what to do.

His didn’t remember the procession, couldn’t really remember their faces—his father’s less than his mother’s. He knew about them—what they had done, what kind of people they had been—but it was all second hand, useless to the child who grieved the parents he had never had and never would have.

He remembered moving constantly. His parents died and they were moved to stay with their grandparents—him and his sister. He didn’t remember them well either. He knew they would kiss his cheeks and show him warmth and affection, but would just as fast spank him if he put his shoe covered feet on the couch.

They died, as well, he found out, later—not a year after they moved in with them.

He had assumed they, too, had taken an extended vacation. Maybe his parents had needed help.

Then it was the Shippen family. They were a nice bunch of folks, but lived in a neighborhood that was too bright and not very kind to those who were less bright on the outside.

Sarah texted her boyfriend everyday—how she was doing, where they were, if he wanted to meet up later—and he understood. She wanted time alone with him.

He guessed she would take an extended vacation soon, too.

Then Timothy came along and not a year after being with the Shippen family they were packed up and moved again over to Timothy’s place. And then they moved again when he got married shortly after.

Aaron liked Rhoda. She was nice and had soft hair and a warm smile. He understood why Timothy liked her even if Sarah was a bit more disdainful towards Rhoda. He assumed it was just because they were close in age.

He was about seven, then.

It was when he was eight that he was told his parents were dead, his grandparents were dead, that what he experienced in the Shippen’s neighborhood was racism and that it would follow him around the rest of his life.

If he had to pinpoint a spot where things started to go badly, he’d pick there, but sometimes he wondered—when had it ever gone right to begin with? Maybe it went wrong two and a half years after he was born.

Maybe it was wrong before then.

He can’t say he remembered much of his childhood. It felt like it was swept away in a blur of traveling from home to home, listening to people’s pity and disgust, feeling hands gripping his wrist and telling him that he was like an ink blot—ruining the smooth, white paper.

He felt it was a good thing he didn’t remember much, although he sometimes wished he had.

Maybe it would help get him through the rough times.

But then he thought—wouldn’t any happy memories just make the rough times harder to bear?

And now here he was, sitting on a bed he didn’t know in a room he didn’t know wondering when the person he didn’t know would show up—wondering if they would tell him to take a paint brush to his skin and paint it white or shove pity down his throat when an eventual conversation began.

He didn’t particularly feel like waiting around to find out, but he also didn’t fancy being murdered in his sleep because he couldn’t be bothered to wait for their eventual arrival.

Shifting awkwardly, he rose from the bed—the one closest to the door—and worked on putting down the bedding for it, folding the sheets crisply as a form of distraction from the long wait he was suffering through. When the sheets were done, he moved onto his clothes, folding his undergarments and placing them in the drawers of the bedside table, organized in neat little rows along with his socks and small bunch of ties—for whenever he was doing something formal.

He didn’t end up meeting his roommate that day, but from the sign on the door, he knew their last name was Hamilton, the text looking long and sort of foreboding above his short ‘Burr’.

The night was dark and he found himself staring up at the ceiling—unfamiliar, strange, white and bright. The window was open, the noise of the campus, the wind, and the soft growl of engines down the street a welcome distraction from the silence of his thoughts, the conflict of his mind.

His phone lay next to him, the screen black.

Sarah hadn’t texted today—which was fine. She was with Tapping. It’s not like she was obligated to text him every day. Rhoda had sent him a message saying she hoped he had settled in easily enough and Timothy had called and had a brief conversation with him on the beauty and dangers of college.

Aaron loved all three of them, but their words were short and not enough to distract from his thoughts, from the foreign feeling of the room and the fact that there was no one in the bed beside his and how the room didn’t feel like home—how nowhere had ever felt like home.

His lungs seized and he squeezed his eyes shut, rolling over onto his side, placing his phone on the bedside table next to him.

His roommate would show up tomorrow—it was no big deal. They just hadn’t made it today. They had a week to show up; he was just always early. A low sigh escaped him, nerves calming as the soft sounds of the world filtered into his ears before slowly fading out as he slowly dozed off, hand clutching the bed sheet next to his head.

Morning brought a whole new set of issues.

There was a diner not too far from the campus and he made his way through the chill of the morning to it, hands tucked in the pockets of his pants, eyes scanning about. The world seemed so much calmer and welcoming in the bright of the morning sun and it sent a feeling of ease to his thoughts.

The stroll was pleasant enough and upon arriving at the diner, he ordered before locating himself a table in the far end of the shop, hands folded on top of the table, gaze casting about. There seemed to be a healthy mixture of colors about him from the few people who had come here that morning, the neutral palette a delightful blend and making him relax a bit more. At least those problems would not haunt him here.

There were loud voices near the entrance and he glanced over, but didn’t let his gaze linger longer than ensuring it wasn’t something bad before he tugged out his laptop that he had brought with him—early morning work and all—and powered it on, checking his phone as he waited.

Sarah had texted, he noted, staring blankly at the screen.

He guessed it was the unfamiliar location that made his heart ache and long for his sister, but he shoved the feeling away, taking note of the words. It was an apology for not having texted the previous night and a short sentence of hope that he had settled alright along with a short summary as to why she couldn’t text. She had been out with Tapping, like he had assumed.

Typing back a short ‘it’s fine’ along with ‘I am glad you are doing well’, he turned his attention to his computer, tucking his phone back into his pocket as he clicked to his documents to pull up his most recent work, wanting to get some of it done.

“Mr. Aaron Burr,” a voice asked from beside him and he looked over to the waitress who held his plate of poached eggs on toast with a side of apple maple sausages and a small beet salad with goat cheese.

“Yes; thank you,” he answered, accepting the plates and setting them down gently.

“I’ll be right back with your coffee,” the woman told him, smiling down at him before moving away and he returned his attention to his computer, tapping out a few paragraphs in the short seconds, his phone vibrating and taking his attention from his writing to the screen of the device.

‘Is it comfortable there? Have you made friends?’

He smiled wryly, typing back a short response to Sarah of ‘it has only been a day and not everyone has arrived yet; I was sleeping’.

“Mr. Burr,” the waitress said as he set down the ceramic cup filled with the rich, dark coffee. “Any sugar or cream, Mr. Burr?” the lady asked politely and he shook his head with a white smile, shifting the cup to the side furthest from his computer.

“No, thank you. I like my coffee black,” he chuckled and woman laughed lightly.

“Brave,” she teased before moving away to take the group of loud gentlemen who had come in to the booth in front of Burr’s, handing them their menus before moving away.

At that point, Burr’s attention was once more on his computer and he cheered internally at realizing the diner had internet and quickly connecting himself, checking his e-mail and pulling up one of the newspapers online to read once his e-mails were checked.

His fork cut into the poached egg on one of the pieces of toast, cutting off a piece of the toast along with a bit of the egg, the yolk spilling over and he leaned over the plate to eat, keeping a napkin near him to wipe away any bits staining his lips or the corners of his mouth, chewing in silence as he read through the latest article on the presidency and the world of politics.

“I’m sorry, but are you Aaron Burr?”

The voice surprised him and his eyes flicked up to see one of the boisterous gentlemen from before peeking over the back of the booth in front of Burr’s. He swallowed, back straightening automatically, a slight bit of dread pooling in his stomach. He nodded his head, searching his mind in a frantic scramble to find out if he had done anything he shouldn’t have at any point.

“Yes,” he responded. “Who’s asking?”

The man’s head disappeared and Aaron watched him scramble out of his booth, telling one of the guys to move over so he could get out. Once the man was out, the first thing Aaron noticed was the man’s height. He was shorter than Burr, which, while it wasn’t really much, softened his worries a little bit.

At least he knew he had longer legs and would be able to get away if this turned bad.

“I’m Alexander Hamilton—you’re roommate. I guess I got there just after you left,” the male, Alexander, responded, a little grin on his face that made the sides of his eyes crinkle. Aaron blinked slowly, fork absentmindedly cutting another slice of his toast and egg.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he responded, pulling on a smile while he tried to internally deal with the oddness of the situation. He had definitely not expected to run into his roommate here of all places while he was trying to read the newspaper and eat in peace.

“Oh, this is your roommate,” another voice asked and Aaron looked over to see a guy with freckles poking his head over the booth, two other heads appearing just a bit behind him, probably sitting opposite of the guy with the freckles and Hamilton.

“Yup,” Alexander responded, popping the ‘p’. “Oh,” the male exclaimed, motioning at the three other people to saddle their way out of the booth and stand in front of Burr’s table. He wondered if this was how most people were here or if it was just these four who were like this—a bit nosy with a lot of exuberance. “This is John Laurens,” Alexander motioned to the one with freckles, “and this is Lafayette,” he motioned this time to the tall man with the lighter shade of dark skin, “and this is Hercules Mulligan, like the Disney character—but better,” Alexander finished, motioning to the darkest of the four who wore an awkward sort of smile. “I met them at a coffee shop about two blocks down just now; they’re going to study at the same place as us.”

Aaron nodded, keeping the smile firmly in place and his expression honest and, hopefully, natural. “It’s nice to meet you all,” he responded and it was a sort of miracle when the waitress came back and asked them if they would like to eat while setting their orders down at their table. The four shuffled back to their seats, Alexander giving Burr a last smile before slipping into the booth, John following after him.

He couldn’t help but feel odd as he turned back to his meal, popping the egg and toast into his mouth as he turned to face his laptop screen again, chewing thoughtfully. It wasn’t elation that filled him or reluctance. It was a sort of confusion, but as to what, he didn’t know.

Maybe it was towards Alexander’s bountiful energy and excitement? Maybe it was at the fact that someone had even talked to him? Maybe it was towards the easy way Alexander seemed to have made friends after being there for an hour while Burr had been there for a day and he had yet to have talked to anyone until now?

It made his gut clench in a way he had grown familiar with over the years—a feeling he had learned to not let control his actions. Jealousy was a foul thing.

He shook his head at himself as he speared a couple of herbs and beets with his fork and chewed on them as he turned back to the newspaper article on the screen, pulling out his phone as it vibrated.

‘Okay. Make some friends! We’re not close enough to be much use to you for company anymore.’

His gut clenched again, but for a different reason this time.

 

 

 

Aaron liked to think of himself as a pretty nice person—he was open, he was honest, he tried to keep away from inflammatory topics with people he didn’t know and if he ever had to discuss them he tried to keep a neutral point of view and see both sides.

He was pleasant—or at least that was how he perceived himself.

He tried hard, not so much to fit in, but to be included. He didn’t care all that much about fitting in—chances were that unless their skin colors matched a lot of people would look down their nose at him when it came to certain things, if not all things.

He had chosen to go to a school in a supposedly accepting city, but it was quite the sight when he walked up to his lecture hall everyday and saw nothing but an unconscious form of segregation. The colored stayed with the colored and the blank canvases stayed with the other blanks.

And Aaron—well, he was in the middle.

It was an odd sort of feeling. He was a nice guy, he was understanding and compassionate. He pushed himself to understand others even if he had no care for whatever it was that was bothering them because he wanted them to feel better or feel like they had someone and, maybe, return the favor when the time came that he needed someone to listen to him.

But he guessed things were different here.

Back with Timothy and Rhoda he had friends—there were really only three, but they were the best he could have asked for. But they went to colleges far from home and far from him and they were older, they left before he had. But Aaron had always tried to be there for them when he could and they would return the favor sometimes. And they kept in touch, but their interactions were a tad few and far between—too little for Aaron’s tastes, but they were busy. He understood that.

He wasn’t busy with anything, though.

Here in college, though, it seemed that understanding, compassion, and a neutral perspective didn’t get you any friends or even acquaintances. He found himself feeling like maybe his skin was blue or like he had some sort of rash or maybe a sign on his back that said ‘do not talk to, associate with, or like me—unless your name is Alexander Hamilton’.

And that was how it seemed.

People tended to talk to him only when necessary. He would sit in the middle of the class with a seat free on all sides of him and feel more ostracized than he ever had back home with the saliva dripping words of abuse because his fingers were long and dark and thin and didn’t scrape red when he fell but scraped chalky and peeled and only if he truly hit the ground hard would red be visible—but the kids had always grumbled about how it looked like water on his skin and until it got on his clothes, it was hardly noticeable.

“Can you believe that he had the audacity to say that? To me—of all people?”

“No; that was wrong of him,” Burr responded, shifting his position on the bed to cross his legs, propping his elbows on his knees and level Alexander with a serious look, forcing himself to listen and immerse himself in what the male was saying—so desperate he felt on the inside for some form of conversation.

“I know! And so I told him—Burr?” He hummed to show his acknowledgement, brow furrowing as Alexander’s head whipped about, eyes searching. “Is that your phone vibrating or mine?”

He didn’t even have check, his own phone settled between the gap of his thighs and his calves, still and quiet against his heel. “Yours,” he answered simply, letting his chin get propped on his hand, watching as Alexander dove through the mess that was his side of the room to dig out the device and hold it to his ear while he peeled a piece of tape from the bottom of his sock, frowning at it and then flicking it back onto the floor instead of the trash not two feet away.

“John,” he cried out, flopping back onto his bed and Burr absently clicked the home button on his phone, staring at the screen as his own screen saver stared back at him and when the screen went black, his own face—eyes hollow and sad.

“I’ll see you soon,” he heard Alexander say from the other side of the room and looked over, feigning nonchalance, cheek squished against his palm.

“Are you heading out?”

“Yeah; the guys are going to the movies and they asked me to come with,” Alexander responded, stumbling about and digging around for a pair of jeans to replace his sweats, scrambling for a hair tie at the same time.

He nodded, ignoring the lump in his throat. “Alright—have fun.”

Alexander’s head shot up from where he was tugging on his shoes, eyes wide and jaw dropped open, as if some sort of realization dawned on him. “Do you want to come?”

He shook his head although on the inside he longed to go even if no one would talk to him—just traveling in a group might make him feel better, although he knew it would do the opposite. “No—I have a paper I’m supposed to be working on.” That wasn’t quite a lie. He was supposed to be working on the paper, but the only problem was that he had already done it at breakfast the day after it was assigned and had edited and revised it during lunch that same day.

“Alright,” Alexander nodded, standing up and looking around for his keys and wallet, Aaron helpfully instructing him that he had put them in the top drawer of his nightstand out of some false hope that he’d remember where they were if they were closer to him in a way. “Thanks,” he laughed, shoving his keys, wallet, and phone into his pockets. “You should come next time, okay,” Alexander told him, heading to the door. “I’ll see you later.”

He let Alexander leave with the sight of his smile and a small wave, his expression falling once the door was shut and locked and the footsteps retreated from the room.

That had been what he had said last time.

Maybe he shouldn’t make excuses for why he shouldn’t go as a tag-along, but he knew it was rude, had been raised to know his manners, especially in such situations. He remembered Rhoda telling him gently ‘you don’t go where you’re not invited’ when he had been brought home by some child’s parent on the complaint that he had shown up with one of the boys that came to her son’s birthday party and was putting bad thoughts into her child’s head.

He hadn’t known it was wrong to tell people that anyone could love anyone and anything.

The room was quiet once more and he shifted a bit uneasily, looking about himself. It was still relatively early, just a little over seven o’clock—too early to go to bed, but too late for him to feel safe going out in a city he didn’t quite know yet. It was dark outside already, as the weather got colder and the days got shorter, fall bringing about the night faster than summer and raising the moon high in the sky.

He figured a shower was ideal, so he shuffled out of his clothes, wrapping a towel around his waist and one around his shoulders and ambled down to the communal bathroom to wash away the dirt of the day.

The shower didn’t make him feel better, though.

The showers were empty—most people here didn’t shower until eight at night, or they showered at six, or in the morning—and the fall of the water over his head was just a way to let the tears fall without anyone being able to notice.

No one ever mentioned that it would be so lonely to be away from his family and how odd people became outside of high school—how the cliques still held but there was a new requirement and that was to share the ideals of the group loudly or to get out.

And Aaron wasn’t really about that, hadn’t been raised on it.

He played both sides, tried to see both sides. It was what kept him going in the town he grew up in. If he had only seen his side, he would have done as he was screamed to and taken a jump off the old warehouse building downtown, if the climb up to the roof didn’t kill him first.

His room was just as silent and empty when he returned and he sighed, moving about to change into his sleeping clothes and then grabbed his phone, settling down and plugging it in to charge and pulling up his messages.

‘How are you?’ he typed out to Timothy, pressing send before he could talk himself out of it, tell him not to be a burden and to let Timothy and Rhoda enjoy their quiet time. It wasn’t two minutes after that text was sent that his phone vibrated and he looked at it, at the request to FaceTime and answered the call, holding the phone up so that he could see it.

Timothy’s face appeared on the screen, Rhoda beside him, their expressions amicable, smiles on both of their faces.

“Aaron,” Timothy called, grinning and laughing a bit when Aaron mocked his greeting with a small grin that felt just a tad bit less forced than it did whenever he talked to Alexander. “How are you?”

His grin faltered and he tried to salvage the expression, but from the looks on both Timothy and Rhoda’s faces he wouldn’t be very successful on brushing that off. “I’m doing better than I thought I would be,” he answered, trying to keep it neutral. He had expected to crash and burn the second he left home or be killed with the first two days. Thankfully he had done neither, but he felt stunningly close to doing the first one emotionally.

“That’s good,” Rhoda cooed, but her brow was furrowed. “Are you alone?”

“Hm? Yeah—my roommate went to go hang out with his friends,” he answered, shifting to prop his pillows up behind him and then leaning back against them, tugging his knees up to his chest. He tucked his chin against them, holding the phone a bit further out so that his face was still in the picture, looking at Timothy and Rhoda’s faces.

“How is it over there?” Timothy asked, and there was that bleeding of concern into his voice that made Aaron’s walls shuddered and made the lump form in his throat and made his tongue feel heavy in his mouth.

“It’s really quiet over here,” he mumbled and as a lone tear leaked from his eyes, his voice broke.

 

 

 

“Burr,” Alexander called to him cheerily, nursing his cup of coffee while Aaron stood at the counter, waiting to receive his own. “Come here,” he added, motioning with his hand for the man to come over, as if the instruction itself wasn’t enough.

He sighed internally, walking over and pretending not to see the sudden strain on everyone’s smiles, the way Laurens glanced over at Hamilton with a sort of confused and angered expression.

“What is it?” he answered, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at Alexander, pulling on a smile, trying to ignore the silent feeling of ‘go away’ he was getting from the other three occupants of the table.

“I was just telling these guys about this new movie coming out next week and I told you that you should come the next time we go out, so I was wondering if you wanted to tag along?” Alexander asked, taking a sip of is coffee, his smile never receding.

Aaron could feel the dislike thickening in the air as the force of their stares and the tension in their smiles increased. “What’s the movie about?”

“Oh, it’s great! It’s about this guy who is born with these powers, right? But he doesn’t know it. And he discovers them some day on accident while he’s running away from some cops after stealing something and then he uses them to get into the Secret Service so that he can protect the president or something and it’s super cool—lots of action and—get this—the president’s a female! Isn’t that great?”

He smiled again, nodding his head. “It sounds neat,” it was like the three were painting it on the wall—writing ‘go away; don’t come’ in big red letters, “but it’s not my kind of movie. The romance between the guy and the president will probably overshadow the actual plot. So, I’m going to have to pass. Sorry,” he made his expression apologetic even though all he felt was relief when the other three relaxed, the tension diminishing like it was never there—although Alexander, of course, hadn’t realized its presence to begin with.

“Bummer,” the male muttered, his smile disappearing for a moment as he looked dejected, but it found its way onto his expression again as he turned bright eyes on Burr once more. “When one comes out that you like, let me know and we’ll all go together.”

He nodded, fought back the tingling in his toes and the uncomfortable tightness in his chest as his stomach churned. “Will do,” he responded, shooting the shorter male a smile before glancing behind himself. “I have to go now; see you later.”

“Bye!”

On his way past the counter, he grabbed his cup of coffee, mumbling a soft ‘thank you’ and quickly exited the shop, taking a long gulp and letting the burning pain in his mouth numb the pain in his chest.

 

 

 

The room was full this time, surprisingly. Alexander’s half of the room was clean for once and he was sitting on his bed, Laurens next to him and Mulligan and Lafayette across him, papers settled between them. Alexander looked up at the sound of him entering and frowned slightly.

“You’re back early,” he commented, looking around at his friends as the other three looked up.

Aaron shrugged slightly, moving over to his bed, opening the side drawer and pulling out the small black rectangular portable charger there. “I just needed this.”

It pained him a bit at the visible way the four of them relaxed at the realization that he was leaving immediately. He told himself they didn’t mean for it to hurt the way it did. It’s just how it happened to feel to him—but it did hurt. He knew he wasn’t friends with most of them—he was an outsider in their group—but to see even Alexander’s shoulders sag in relaxation and his easy smile appear made his mouth taste sour and he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Do you need anything before I go?”

Alexander looked about his group before shaking his head slightly, smiling. “Nah, I think we’re good,” he told him, grinning and waving as Aaron nodded and left with a strained smile.

The hallway was silent and the door clicked shut behind him. He moved down the hall, steps sounding dull and muffled in the silence and his bag shifted against his hip. Moving down the stairs, he felt his heart clench with each step, bile rising in the back of his throat. He wanted to do nothing more than curl up on the ground against the cold cement and not have to see the light of day again—at least for just today.

Forcing himself to keep moving, he swallowed thickly—pushed himself to get out of the stairwell at the very least. It was at moments like this that he contemplated the benefits of drugs, of the smoke of a joint filling his lungs and numbing his senses. But he fought away the desire, forcing himself past the doors, moving out into the grass and onto the street, inhaling the fresh air that was as good as any joint was supposed to be.

Heading to a brewery was a last minute decision, but his steps guided him towards alcohol, anything to numb his pain just slightly. He longed to call Rhoda and Timothy, but they lived busy lives, they couldn’t be watching his every step and guiding him at every moment of every day. Sarah was with Tapping up north, most of the time not having a signal to send him a text, but at the very least she had a satellite phone on her at all times so he didn’t worry as much as he would have otherwise for her safety.

“What would you like?”

“A cherry tart sour beer, please, and the Reuben sandwich,” he mumbled, giving the man a smile, watching him walk away before he looked back dejectedly at the wood of the table. No one ever seemed to want him around. It was depressing.

Pulling out his computer and paper, he settled in to, at the very least, work on his next paper. If he was going to be alone, he should at least make use of his time. Pulling up the practically finished paper—a testament to the amount of free time he had available to him, he began typing out the last few or so paragraphs as he waited, letting himself enjoy the atmosphere.

His food was served roughly twenty minutes into his writing, at this point he was simply putting in the last few sources, his work revised and edited at least three times by now.

Rhoda had always told him he was an efficient man with a brain that processed things faster than most—special.

He wished she had been wrong about the efficient part.

“Hey, Burr! What are you doing here?” a voice called as he started on the second half of his sandwich, his eyes flicking up to take in the sight of none other than Alexander, Lafayette behind him, his hip cocked and arms crossed loosely over his chest.

He pointedly looked down at his food and drink and back up at Alexander, still chewing as he wiped away any crumbs on his lips with a napkin, looking over at the two. Hercules appeared to be sitting at a table already, Laurens looking over at them from where he was seated across from Hercules.

“Right, dumb question—sorry,” Alexander laughed and Aaron tried to disassociate the Hamilton from before from this one, but the uncomfortable tingling was already developing, his toes curling in his shoes. If the guy didn’t want him around why did he keep talking to him? It didn’t make sense to him.

“It was,” he said as he swallowed, pulling on a smile so that it seemed teasing even though it really wasn’t. It had been a dumb question. “You should go over there and order.” He cocked his head, indicating where Laurens and Mulligan were seated.

Alexander seemed to deflate a little—and what was up with that?

“You are the worst, Burr,” Lafayette muttered, his French accent thick and making the words sound so much more condescending and he couldn’t tell if it was teasing or genuine, but Lafayette was already sauntering away to flop down next to Hercules in the booth.

“They have really fast service here, is what I meant,” Burr clarified, trying to get the French man’s words out of his head, but they had ruined any sense of peace he had managed to build, his heart splintering and breaking and he didn’t know how to salvage the pieces.

He had always felt alone, but it was easier before because there wasn’t anyone around. Now he was surrounded by people and the loneliness seemed so much more poignant.

Alexander brightened, nodding and smiling, waving as he skipped over to his friends and immediately began talking with them.

Burr flagged down the waiter, politely asking for his check, shutting down his computer and moving quickly to get everything cleared away as fast as possible and back in his bag. He couldn’t do it—couldn’t be here with them in the booth just to the side with their laughter and their smiles—when they looked at him like he was so unwanted, the discomfort they didn’t even try to hide.

When the waiter returned, he handed them the twenty dollars he owed them, placing the half of his sandwich that he hadn’t eaten in the Styrofoam box offered to him along with his sweet potato fries before bolting, trying to hold back the bile rising in his throat and the pain in his chest.

It hurt so much—why? Why did it hurt him so much?

Alexander was the only person who really talked to him without really needing to, but Aaron couldn’t talk to Alexander around his other friends. They were either cold and distant or overly comfortable to the point of cruelty, poking at his insecurities without knowing how deeply their words affected him, how they tore him up from the inside out as he lay in bed at night.

It was still early, but he didn’t want to return to the room. He walked down the street aimlessly, slowing when he crossed one of the parks in the city, steering into the streets that lead to its center, sitting down at one of the benches, ignoring the light fall chill as he pulled out his little box of food and set in his lap.

And then there was the overwhelming feeling of sadness as he looked down at the box, the indentation of where his nails had dug in his haste to get out of the brewery as fast as possible, his beer left unfinished and practically untouched. The tears welled in his eyes, but he fought them back, blinking up at the sky, staring at the grey pallor of the clouds.

“Do you have some money to spare? Sir?” a small voice asked from before him and he blinked, looking at the figure in front of him, a slightly stocky woman, her eyes sunken in slightly, her clothes worn but mostly clean, her eyes desperate and hopeful.

He swallowed, looking down, saw the small girl peeking from behind her, felt his gut clench.

“I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of cash on me,” he told them, rising from his seat and holding out the Styrofoam box. “There’s food in here—not much but it’s something. And just, give me a second,” he mumbled, reaching in his bag, keeping an eye on the woman and her child, feeling wary even as he fingered the cash he kept tucked in the inside pocket, separate from his wallet. “Here’s forty dollars, I think,” he told them, holding them out, trying to ignore the tears in her eyes as she shakily accepted the money.

“Thank you—thank you, sir,” she told him, her smile weak and trembling, but genuine. She had a way about her, a strength that showed that she wouldn’t be dragged down by her situation and it inspired a connection in Burr’s head.

“I’m sorry—this isn’t my business, but did you happen to serve?” he couldn’t help but ask, probably one of the only times he let his curiosity get the better of him, closing his bag and keeping a hand on it, grip tight. Even if she seemed nice, he wasn’t willing to take his chances. It wasn’t like he had much either. Timothy and Rhoda were far from rich, and so was Aaron.

“I did,” she nodded, her shoulders squaring a bit in obvious pride. “How did you guess?”

“The way you hold yourself—you have a stiffness and straightness to your posture that isn’t due to just this chill. You also have a way of talking. It just set off the connection in my head,” he admitted, smiling awkwardly.

“Well, thank you,” she told him, dipping her head in a show of thanks as she gripped the forty dollars in her hand, the Styrofoam box held tightly in her little girl’s hands. “I promise you this money will be put to good use.”

“I have no doubt,” he told her, smile widening a bit and expression softening slightly. He did have doubt, but he’d give her the benefit. He didn’t want that little girl ending up as he had. “I hope you manage to find a job soon,” he told her as more of an afterthought than anything and she smiled bitterly, ducking her head a bit.

“You and I both,” she mumbled as she reached down to take one of the girl’s hands, coaxing her to follow along, the girl’s eyes remaining fixated on Burr and his heart clenched. He had done all he could—he didn’t have much to give.

He watched them leave, his mood sourer and he turned and began his trek home, checking his phone on the way. The words on the screen were from Sarah, a short thing telling him she was okay and that she and Tapping were having fun.

He responded with a smiling face even though his own lips were turned down in a faint frown, his hands tingling and he scrolled through his contacts, finger hesitating over the button before pressing the message icon, typing out a few short words.

‘I might call in a bit; is that alright?’

The response was nearly immediate. ‘Of course’ it read and he nodded a bit, chewing on his bottom lip as he ascended the stairs and dragged himself to his room, unlocking the door and setting down his bag on his bed, shuffling about and getting together what he needed to shower.

His shower was short and quick, the time only being five, but he could feel exhaustion creeping up on him, the dark shroud of loneliness also a sweet lullaby, coaxing him to sleep more—he didn’t have any projects due that he hadn’t already finished, he didn’t have class tomorrow. He just wanted to sleep.

Now, sitting on his bed, feet bare and tucked under the blanket along with his legs, he looked down at the contact, pressing the call button before he could talk himself out of it, convince him it was a bad idea. Timothy had enough going on probably without Aaron unloading his own ridiculous problems—but the feeling was driving him mad. He was fairly certain he’d implode.

“Hello,” Timothy responded as he picked up, voice holding the same concerned edge as the day before and Aaron swallowed thickly, all the emotions he had been repressing suddenly rising to the surface, pushing against his walls, wanting to get out.

“Hey,” he responded, voice choked and he hated how weak it sounded, how he felt like he was about to cry—and if the burning in his eyes was any indication, he was—but he felt so alone. He just needed someone to be there or someone to at least listen and no one here had shown that they were willing. People were always so willing to unload their problems onto others and make them carry the burden as well, but were never willing to help them carry their load as well.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head even though Timothy couldn’t see him, tears slipping from his eyes and dripping down his chin, lips quivering as he sucked in a breath, trying to make his voice steady once again. “Nothing, I just—I needed someone to talk to,” he mumbled, swallowing at the end of the sentence, “and there isn’t anyone here to talk to.”

He heard rustling in the background, Timothy’s soft ‘oh’ filled with concern and sadness. “You can always talk to me,” the male assured him, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t exactly call Timothy at all hours of the day to talk. He had a job and a social life and a family and even if Aaron was part of that family, he didn’t need to burden them and make them more worried for their kid who was so far from home.

“I know,” he whispered, voice shaking, breathing rattling out of him as he twisted to curl up on the bed, phone tucked against his ear as he tried to get his bearings about him. “It’s so quiet here—there’s never anyone around.”

Timothy was quiet for a moment before slowly speaking again. “Why don’t you hang out with your friends?”

“I don’t have any,” he mumbled. “Well, I have one, sort of. Sometimes he likes me other times he treats me like his friends treat me.”

“Which is how?”

“Like they would prefer I didn’t breathe the same air as them,” he admitted, lump forming in his throat once more and he curled up tighter, tears coming out faster now. “And I don’t know what to do. I never go out unless they’re hanging out with Alex in the room and I have to beat it, and no one talks to me—no one even sits next to me.” His voice broke on the words, his heart clenching, eyes squeezing shut as he tried to push back the tears, but the dam had been broken and there was no way to stop them from coming out.

And Timothy was as clueless about what to do as he was.

And that just made it hurt all the more.

 

 

 

He wasn’t sure when he fell asleep during his conversation with Timothy, but when he awoke it was to an empty room and the same hollow feeling in his chest. Hamilton’s bed was untouched, no sign of the male ever having returned to the room during the course of the night.

Aaron closed his stinging eyes, rolled over, and forced himself to go back to sleep, to hide from the uncomfortable tingling of loneliness and the reality that not even Alexander seemed to like him anymore.

 

 

 

It was winter break—the greatest time of year for all college students because it meant going home for a little bit and relaxing before returning to the stress of classes and socializing and jobs.

And Burr? He was staying in his dorm after taking a weak glance at his account balances. He didn’t have the money to get a plane ticket back home unless it was important. Timothy told him he understood, but the male sounded so concerned when he had asked if he’d be okay.

His automatic response was ‘of course’ and he wasn’t lying.

If no one was around for a long period of time, the pain was easier to ignore and easier to express because it was just him around to witness it.

He watched Alexander pack from his place on his bed, reclined against the pillows, book propped open in his lap. The male was chattering away as he shoved clothes haphazardly into his suitcase, talking about how great it was to get some time to relax a bit and how he and the three stooges were going to spend the break in a lake house because Lafayette’s parents wouldn’t be around if he went back to France to visit them, so he took the money to rent out a lake house for the two weeks off and invited his friends to come along.

“Are you even listening to me?” Alexander suddenly stopped, whirling around to face Aaron who looked up from his book where he had been staring at the same page for the last few minutes, trying to hold back any bitterness because he shouldn’t be taking his lack of invitation so personally. He wasn’t all that close to them—they just accepted his presence occasionally because Alexander seemed to want him there.

“Of course I am,” Aaron responded, brow furrowing in confusion and Hamilton sighed, sitting down on his bed, a slump in his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“You,” the other male bit out sourly, his own brow furrowed. Aaron felt his heart drop through the floor, his insides twisting, the tingling starting up again making him twitch with discomfort and he fought to hide it, curling his fingers around the cover of the book.

“I’m sorry?” he breathed out, holding his voice steady even though it felt like an earthquake beneath him, like his voice should be shaking as a reason as to why his heart just toppled off its shelf like a piece of fine china and broke.

“It’s just,” Alexander groaned in frustration, raking his hands through his hair and looking over at Burr, jaw set. “You don’t do anything!”

Aaron blinked.

“You have no personality, no motives, no drive—you don’t have any passion. You just muddle through everything and I thought that would change, I thought you’d break out of your shell, but you haven’t. It has been five months since I met you and you are the same. You haven’t changed.” Alexander stared at him long and hard, chest heaving slightly and Aaron was fighting back shuddering breaths, focusing on keeping the air coming in and out of his lungs. “Do you understand how frustrating it is? I have conversations with you and you agree with me—which is great—but you don’t really say anything other than ‘be calm’ and ‘keep your eye on the ball’.”

He wanted to apologize, but he felt like his world was shattering a little bit, like his college life was a picture with him on one side and Hamilton on the other—the only person who ever seemed to really enjoy his company—and it was just torn down the middle. And what would he apologize for? He couldn’t exactly apologize for being Aaron Burr and not Hercules Mulligan or Lafayette or John Laurens—or even Thomas Jefferson who Alexander loved to complain about.

“What the hell am I supposed to make of that? And you don’t talk to anyone. I see you sitting in the library alone sometimes and whenever you go out, you go out alone. You don’t have a social life. It makes me feel bad whenever I got out with my friends because I know that when I go out you’re just going to sit here and spend your time reading or writing or sleeping.”

What was he supposed to say? Was he supposed to apologize for the fact that no one seemed to like him and had figured out what kind of a person he was before Alexander did? Was he supposed to tell him ‘I’m sorry you didn’t notice before’ or something of that ilk?

“And you send—what—one text every day? I saw one of the responses to one of them—on accident; it wasn’t like I snooped on your phone. It said ‘hang in there’. What does that mean? Is something wrong with you, Burr? Is something wrong with your time here? I think the answer is ‘yes’ but I don’t know the why and it’s not useful asking you because you don’t talk about yourself without prompting and you don’t say what you think unless someone says it first. You sit there and let everyone chant circles around you and you don’t even bother to notice—and why would you? You’re always alone!”

This wasn’t Alexander—every part of him was screaming that this wasn’t Alexander. Something had to have happened. Maybe he was upset because it was at times like winter break that he was reminded he didn’t have anyone to go home to—he didn’t have a home to go back to, period. That had to be it.

“And I just thought that maybe—for once—I’d be able to walk out that door and not feel like complete crap for leaving because you’d be going home because I know that you have your uncle or whatever; and how long did it take me to get that out of you? But no—you’re staying here, again, and will do nothing other than go out alone and eat and then come back here to read, write, or sleep. You’re like a doll, Burr. You look like you’re someone, but in reality, you’re no one. You have no substance.”

He blinked, felt a single tear track its way down his cheek and he turned away from Alexander’s face, his furrowed brow and pursed lips, the heaving of his chest and the desperation, anger, and resentment in his eyes. He looked away and returned his gaze down to his book, ignoring the wetness that stained his cheek, a single wet trail.

“I guess it’s a good thing you guys are heading out today, then,” he mumbled and he heard Alexander’s shuddering breath, heard him stand and take a step closer, crushing whatever remained of his heart and turning it into dust under his shoe.

“Burr—”

“You should go or you’ll be late.” He took in a quiet breath, pulling his shoulders back and straightening his spine, mustering up whatever strength he had left to meet Alexander’s gaze and put on a smile, another tear falling and another, but he looked at the other man with everything he could muster from within him, refusing to back down and taking in the sight of Alexander’s face, his eyes wide with probably shock and regret, his hands sort of outstretched. “We’ll talk when you get back,” he told him, keeping his voice steady as he fought back any more tears that threatened to fall.

Alexander seemed to hesitate and Aaron quickly returned his eyes to his book.

He heard the other male finish shoving his things in his bag, the sound of the zipper closing grating on Aaron’s ears, and listened to the footsteps as they moved away from their beds and towards the door—listened to the door open.

He tugged his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, holding the book up to shield his face as he tucked it against his knees, letting the tears fall, his breath shuddering out of him, shoulders trembling just slightly.

“Have fun,” he called out, proud that his voice remained steady.

The door shut.

And Aaron let the book fall, grabbed his pillow, buried his face in it, and sobbed.

 

 

 

Two weeks of nothing felt a lot more painful than it had before.

Every waking moment Alexander’s words haunted him.

He went out and got a job; he was a waiter.

Alexander’s words rung through his head, though, as he sat down customers, the echo of ‘you have no personality’ ricocheting inside his skull as he smiled at customers and asked them how their day was and if they knew what they would like to order. The echo of ‘you’re always alone’ whenever he sat in the room, legs crossed, the air still and the silence deafening. The sound of ‘you’re just going to sit here and spend your time reading or writing or sleeping’ making it hard to let his eyes close until he was well and truly exhausted, making it hard write or read without explicit reason like class work.

He took up a job so that he’d have another reason to go out, so that he wouldn’t be sitting in the room alone. He took up knitting so that he was doing something other than reading, writing, or sleeping whenever he was in the room. He stopped going out without explicit reason.

The room became his prison for a week.

He worked long hours as a waiter, received excellent tips and got paid minimum wage as well—something that was rare enough as it was. He was out of the room for a total of ten hours every day, working and then eating and then walking home. He’d get home and sit on his bed and pull out his needles and yarn and work on finishing the third sweater he was making.

It was in the beginning of the second week as he was finishing the fourth sweater that he got the call.

The echo of the words ‘I know that you have your uncle or whatever’ as he sat on his bed, phone lying on the mattress next to him, static filling his ears as that sentence and ‘Rhoda and Timothy are dead’ chased each other around in the confines of his skull.

He wasn’t quite sure he could feel worse than this.

 

 

 

The funeral was short.

Sarah was there, crying weakly against Tapping Reeve’s shoulder. And Timothy and Rhoda’s friends and family were there, saying how much they missed them and how heartbroken they were that they had to pass so tragically in a car accident.

And Burr sat there with a chest full of nothing but crushed glass that he wasn’t sure could be put back together again.

Later, he sat on the hard chair beneath him as a lawyer read the will of the late Timothy and Rhoda, tears streaking his cheeks without a sound escaping him.

And all he could think as they were given the final words of the family that had taken them in after bouncing from home to home was Hamilton’s words which were echoing through his skull.

‘You’re always alone’.

 

 

 

Alexander got home just before six at night on the last day of winter break, Hercules, Lafayette, and Laurens stumbling into the room after him, all four of them laughing over something. Aaron didn’t hear them from where he was sitting on the window sill, his legs numb from having been in that position for so long, his hands holding securely to the wall inside the room so that he wouldn’t fall, and his headphones plugged his ears.

He was counting up, his eyes half lidded as he reached five thousand four hundred and sixty-two, his heart rate slow as he relished in the soft graze of the wind against his face and his collar bone. It was the most he had done in the time he had been back at the dorms after the funeral.

He leaned out a little further, craning his head to look at the gradient of colors in the sky more fully, felt a hand on his shoulder, holding him back and he frowned, leaning back into the room and turning to see Hercules behind him, looking vaguely concerned and Aaron fought back a sigh, shifting awkwardly as he got his numb legs to function, slipping back into the room and tugging out his headphones.

“You’re back,” he addressed them, putting on a smile. “I trust you had fun?”

John Laurens nodded form where he was sitting on Alexander’s bed and Alexander was sitting next to him, looking down at his hands awkwardly, refusing to even glance at Burr.

Aaron wished it hurt—he hadn’t felt much of anything for two weeks.

Or maybe he had just gotten so used to the pain that it didn’t feel like anything.

“What were you doing?” Hercules asked, his hand no longer on Aaron’s shoulder but he was still close with the same look of odd concern on his face. It looked so out of place directed at Aaron that he felt he must have been asleep and his mind had conjured up some painful world where these men actually expressed any form of concern or attachment to him other than reluctant toleration.

“Enjoying the weather,” he responded, walking over to his bed, each step sending prickles up his legs as they slowly reawakened from numbness. “Don’t mind me if you guys want to chat or something—I’m heading out in a minute.”

“Were you planning on heading out the window?” Alexander spoke, his voice cracked and dry, scratching over Aaron’s tender insides like sandpaper.

He frowned, pretended not to relish in the bit of feeling it incited in him because he knew it wasn’t a positive feeling and that he shouldn’t be happy he was feeling something so awful and painful but it was something. He felt like he was a hollow shell—truly the doll Alexander claimed he was.

“Jumping out of the window isn’t on my to-do list,” he muttered, grabbing his bag and tugging it onto his shoulder, looking over at where Alexander was sitting, starting slightly when their eyes met, Alexander’s wide and imploring but he couldn’t face that conversation right now. “There’s a welcome back gift for each of you under Alex’s pillows—the sizes might be a bit off, but they stretch. I’ll see you guys later,” he told them, giving another smile that felt as false as Alexander claimed they were, moving out of the room and locking the door behind him.

Where he ended up going wasn’t very far.

He walked on the campus grounds for a fair bit, moving into the snow and standing to stare up at the sky as the sun slowly set, no clouds in sight; the moon rising to take the sun’s place.

He watched as one by one, the stars became visible.

He couldn’t feel the cold on his skin, couldn’t differentiate the numbness in his limbs from the numbness he had grown accustomed to in the last few days. He simply watched, stared up at the sky and at the few stars he could see in the city light and he hoped that Timothy and Rhoda were having more fun up in the stars than they had been down with the people that made them act like shells of themselves outside their house.

He wanted to scream, to cry, but he was too tired, too numb, to muster up more than a whistle of breath out of his nose—too accustomed to the silence to bother breaking it as loneliness wrapped him up in its familiar embrace.

 

 

 

“I wanted to say I’m really sorry for what I said before I left,” Alexander told him, his voice quiet in the hush of the room, his eyes like a weight on Aaron’s shoulders.

Why was he apologizing? There was nothing to apologize for.

“I was agitated and I took it out on you.”

He already knew that—why was Alexander apologizing? He spoke his mind, agitated or not. That’s what he always did; there was nothing wrong with that. Why was he apologizing?

Why was he apologizing?

“Stop it,” he muttered, feeling his shoulders slump, his head bow forward. “Don’t apologize; there’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“What I said was uncalled for.”

“What you said is the truth of how you perceive me.” He leveled Alexander with a flat look, trying not to let it show how deeply ingrained in him those words already were, how not a single apology that came out of Alexander’s mouth would take away the pain the words had inflicted on him or make sleep easier to come by and reading and writing something he didn’t have to do just out of necessity.

“How can you be okay with that?” Alexander yelled, jumping to his feet and staring at Aaron with indignation and frustration, and Aaron immediately felt his stomach sink and his toes curl because he couldn’t even get the reaction to Alexander’s outburst correct. What was wrong with him? “I hurt you—I know I did. How can you turn around and just act like it’s all fine? Like I didn’t just piss on our friendship? How can you sit there and stare at me, look me in the eye and tell me a long version of ‘whatever’? Does our friendship not matter to you that me destroying isn’t cause for you to be upset?”

He wanted to curl up under his blankets and not emerge, not have to face this moment of having to say the truth or risk the only person he really had left to talk to other than Sarah leaving him for good. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he was left to flounder alone in the dark. He clearly hadn’t functioned all that well without Alexander present and Alexander was certainly no role model for good choices.

“Our friendship matters to me,” he responded, inhaling slowly to keep his voice from shaking. “That’s why I’m willing to forget that it happened.”

“That’s not something you should forget! It was horrible, what I did. You shouldn’t forget it—that’s not how it works.”

He looked at his lap. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget those words,” he admitted quietly, letting the silence descend upon them once more as Alexander stared down at him in surprise and he tilted his head up, his eyes full of tears and lips trembling as they pulled into a smile.

“They just won’t leave me alone.”

 

 

 

A month passed of nothing.

Alexander returned to treating him as he had before, the incident seeming to be forgotten in his mind and Aaron preferred it that way as he worked through getting his feet back under him after Timothy and Rhoda’s death.

He was sitting on his bed again when the call came.

The only thought running through his head was ‘not again’, but the words were the same and Hamilton’s words resumed their echo that had been growing fainter by the day.

‘You’re always alone’.

The sound of those words, so strong and clear again, made him seize up, lungs squeezing all the air out and continuing to compress as he listened to the nurse describe what had happened. Some sort of landslide while they had been hiking—they went down with it when the ground gave way. It took too long for rescue forces to come and get them.

Sarah and Tapping were gone.

He wanted to vomit. He could feel his stomach and muscles seize up, making it a very real possibility as he leaned forward, pressing a hand over his eyes. He could feel the weight of the doctor’s words as his shoulders shook as the tears fell one by one, dripping onto his pants, darkening the material.

“Alright—thank you,” he whispered; his voice hoarse.

He could hear every individual beat of his heart, feel the shuddering of his lungs, smell the salt of his tears as they dripped down the bridge of his nose and down the curve of his jaw. He wanted scream, to dig his nails in and tear his skin off—to chuck himself out the window and join the few people who liked him in the great ever after.

But he remained on the bed, frozen, practically suctioned to it, his phone on the mattress beside him and the feeling of déjà vu truly made him sick—the complete repeat of the events he already went through and didn’t want to go through again.

He didn’t want to lose anyone again.

But that wasn’t up to him.

And now they were all gone.

His contact list was an obituary, his heart a graveyard where in every part he had tucked those special people in all that remained was a stone with dates etched in the middle separated by a dash and their name on top.

He tried to move—tried to get up before Alexander returned, but it was no use. He felt numb all over, like he had lost complete function of his entire body except for his brain and his heart. And Alexander returned, chattering away about what he and his friends had done, to find Aaron still sitting on the bed, phone next to him, and his heart on the floor, the tears still dropping.

 

 

 

The funeral was larger than Timothy and Rhoda’s. Tapping and Sarah had always been two social butterflies—a match made in heaven—but their wings were now cut and they lay as simply the base of their beings in neat long boxes lined with cloth in clothes that didn’t suit them in life and most assuredly did not suit them in death.

Burr sat in the back, his head tilted upwards, looking at the stained glass windows and high domed ceilings and wondered what he had done to deserve this.

He played by the rules, he always treated people well, he never insulted anyone intentionally.

He was a good person.

So why did he have to suffer like this?

 

 

 

Catching up on the few days he missed was simple—his work having already been done before hand and he simply had to enquire as to what the lectures contained in a broad spectrum and he was set. He guessed he should be happy that death was a good excuse and made the professors more amicable about being delayed and questioned about stuff they already covered.

Telling Hamilton why he left so abruptly was less so and he winced at the fact that the male literally had to pry it out of him once more, his words reverberating in his skull.

‘You don’t talk about yourself without prompting’.

“My sister and her husband died. I was going to their funeral,” he told Alexander, watching his eyes widen and his jaw slacken, his face portraying his shock clearly as he spluttered.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry—was your uncle there?”

Aaron’s lips twisted into a mirthless smile, shrugging his shoulders. “He was there in spirit, I suppose, along with his wife.”

“Why weren’t they there?”

“They died last month.”

Alexander was silent, his jaw still slack and eyes still wide before they narrowed and his lips pursed, arms beginning to move about as he let out a loud expletive, pointing a finger at Burr. “This is stuff you’re supposed to tell me! How am I supposed to be there for you if I don’t even know what’s going on? I’ll end up saying something like that and dredge even more bad memories. When did this happen?”

“Last month,” he repeated, brow furrowed.

“When ‘last month’?”

“Second week of break,” Aaron responded, picking at the skin on the inside of his wrist. He didn’t like it whenever Alexander got upset. He always feared the return of those harsh words that haunted him every second of every day even though he had taught himself to go to sleep when he decided to instead of waiting until pure exhaustion made him pass out, and reading and writing were coming to him more easily, although he mainly just wrote about his feelings or what happened to him throughout the days—it was sort of therapeutic.

“God,” Alexander muttered, raking his hands through his hair. “You know what—wait here,” he instructed, marching to grab his coat and his wallet and keys.

Aaron felt his chest seize, heart stuttering in sudden fear. Had he done something wrong? He couldn’t go back to that blankness and numbness of those two weeks without Hamilton. The guy was abrasive and accusatory, but he liked having Aaron around for some reason even after telling him he had no substance.

He always guessed it was because talking to him was better than talking to a wall in Hamilton’s eyes.

“Where are you going?”

He hated that his voice broke, that talking about what bothered him made him feel so exposed like a nerve, vulnerable and defenseless, that the very idea of Hamilton leaving him alone to be swallowed up by the loneliness and the grief felt like running sandpaper against his chest cavity.

“I’m going to be right back—ten minutes, tops, I promise,” Alexander told him and there was understanding in his eyes that made Aaron relax, but then the door closed and with the soft click it was like Pandora’s Box was opened.

The loneliness wrapped him up in his arms and the grief nuzzled at his legs, the confusion clung to his arms and the desperation lay over his eyes, shrouding the outside world from his vision and he wanted to flail and kick, to make the bad feelings be gone and to not succumb to them, but their touch was familiar and he couldn’t make himself move even though he wanted to.

He was frozen to the spot, his breath escaping him shakily but evenly, everything hazy and loneliness whispered in his ear, telling him how he was always alone, how no one ever wanted to around him—how he wasn’t good enough, how the window was just right there, how the sky was calling him because no one on land cared enough to keep him tethered here.

The desperation made everything seem so much clearer and hazier, showing him images of shouting faces, crooked teeth and saliva flying, of rough hands coming at him, of hatred and contempt filled eyes glaring down at him, the stares like daggers tearing him open.

Grief kept him nailed to the bed, stuck in the image of the past, of Timothy and Rhoda’s smiling faces and soft concern and Sarah’s laugh and smile as Tapping spun her around in their backyard, her talk about wanting to explore the world and her grin when she finally could, Timothy’s proud grin when Aaron presented him with the letter proclaiming he was accepted into the college with a full ride, Rhoda’s soft smile as she guided Aaron’s small hands on how to roll the dough out properly.

Confusion left him twitchy, not knowing which way was up or down, which images were truth and which were deception, what was real and what was delusion. He wanted to scream out, tell people he didn’t know what to do, who to be. No matter whom he tried to be there was a flaw, be it while being himself or someone else—he was never good enough. And he didn’t know what was expected of him—didn’t know how people pretended he should be able to go on when he didn’t even know how he managed to wake up every day.

“Aaron,” there was a hand on his shoulder and he blinked, the darkness receding as the haze cleared from his eyes and he met Hamilton’s eyes which were wide and he felt the hand on his wrist, felt the sting as the air brushed over it.

“What did you do?” another soft voice reached his ears and he blinked slowly, looking down at who was holding his wrist, meeting the eyes of Lafayette, his fingers skirting around what appeared to be a bloodied patch of skin and Burr simply stared at it, remembered how the kids back home hated that it was so hard to see the crimson against his skin.

“I didn’t notice,” he mumbled, staring down at the skin then looking at the nails of his other hand, red tucked under them, staining the tips of his fingers, making him frown. How had he not noticed?

“Aaron,” Hamilton coaxed him to look over and he did, blinking slowly, attention focused solely on him, although he did catch sight of Hercules and John just behind Alexander. “I think you need to see someone,” he whispered, looking at Aaron earnestly.

See someone? Did he mean a therapist?

But he couldn’t do that. He remembered the funny looks people gave the men and women who would come out of the therapist’s house, how they would sneer at their puffy eyes or look away from the fidgeting and nervous form of one of the patients.

He didn’t want to be ostracized even more.

“Hey,” Alexander’s voice filtered through and he refocused his gaze on him. “I’ll be with you every step of the way, okay?”

“There’s no shame in going,” Laurens piped up from behind Alexander and Aaron let his eyes scan about the room again, brow furrowing.

Why were they being nice to him? They didn’t like him. They barely talked to him. What was wrong with them? They couldn’t just do that to him. He didn’t want to rely on them only to have them turn around and walk away or look at him like they did before with poorly concealed dislike.

“Why are you guys here?”

“We’re your friends.”

He shook his head, brow furrowing even more as he gently took his wrist out of Lafayette’s hold and shifted just out of Hamilton’s touch. “No, you’re Hamilton’s friends—not mine,” he told them, taking in the expression on each and every single one of their faces. They looked confused, a little bit hurt—remorseful.

He didn’t understand. Why? Why did they look like that?

“None of us have been really good friends to you,” Alexander mumbled, sitting down on his bed and looking at Aaron, but he couldn’t stand the look in his eyes. He didn’t want to hurt anymore, didn’t want to see something he knew couldn’t possibly be there. “But we’re going to be,” he stated and there was that firmness and determination in his voice that was always there whenever Alexander talked about how he was totally going to crush Jefferson in their next debate.

“We’ll be there for you,” John told him and he looked so honest, so open. It made Aaron’s stomach churn, his toes curl in discomfort. The loneliness whispered at him that this couldn’t be true, this wasn’t how it worked; he wasn’t this fortunate—they didn’t like him.

“You need us and we will be there,” Hercules assured him, his jaw set firmly in a way Aaron had seen be directed at Hamilton many times, typically whenever he was telling Hamilton he was supporting him one hundred and ten percent.

“Just say the word,” Lafayette told him, voice soft and his French accent seeming thicker in the quiet.

And Aaron desperately wanted to believe in their words, but it was the desperation to not be proven wrong that held him back. He didn’t want to put his faith in them and have it crushed—he had already lost too much. They said they had been horrible friends so far, they promised they’d be better, but where was the guarantee? They could return to being horrible friends. He hadn’t even known they considered themselves his friends to begin with.

But Pandora’s Box was open and he didn’t know how to shut it, so he opened his mouth, breath shuddering out of him.

“Well,” he breathed, hands shaking just slightly, stomach churning and he held back the bile that rose in his throat, “who should I see?”

He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

 

 

 

Alexander’s hand was warm against his own as he stared up at the door, hands trembling minutely, his eyes casting about, wondering when he’d see someone sneering at him or looking away from him, marking down in their mental book that he was unwell and shouldn’t be socialized with—as if people needed another reason to not talk to him.

“Come on,” Alexander urged, tugging on his hand gently and he stumbled after him, letting himself be led into the building and up the stairs and down a hall to an office and past the door he didn’t want to go through. They stepped in, though, sitting themselves on the couch.

“Alexander—”

“You can do this,” the male whispered to him, voice soft and expression warm. “I’ll be right here—promise.”

A lady opened the door to the room separate from the one they were in, stepping out with a smile. “Are you Aaron?” she asked, a small smile on her lips and he nodded his head numbly, trying to get himself to move but he was frozen to his seat, his hand clutching Alexander’s tightly. “Come on in,” she smiled, motioning for him to follow and he stared after her, turning wide eyes on Hamilton.

“You can do this,” the male repeated, urging Aaron to stand.

The office was neat and cozy and he sat in one of the seats, wishing Alexander was beside him. He wasn’t any good at this stuff—Alexander had said so himself. ‘You never talk about yourself without prompting’.

“Can you,” Aaron began after a few seconds of silence, picking at the bandage wrapped around his wrist, taking in a shuddering breath, “can you help me?”

The lady smiled at him, sitting down across from him.

“I believe I can.”

And despite all the bad feelings that came out of Pandora’s Box, out hopped hope in all its glory and took place in Aaron’s heart, working to keep the bad feelings at bay so he could finally know why he’d wake up the next day.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to find me on insta ( @saruma_aki )--where I let y'all know whenever I post a new fic or update one, plus there's a lot of multi-fandom posts there.
> 
> Let me know what you thought in the comments below!


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